By Gary Corsair
Sports Writer
Hayesville basketball coach Mike Cottrell isn’t likely to forget the first time he laid eyes on Ethan Hooper, a gift-wrapped present of slight build with curly, dark brown hair, a 1,000-watt smile and a jump shot smoother than a polished billiard ball.
“Ethan transferred in two years ago and I had never seen him play. I knew his dad from high school. His dad was a really good athlete at Sylva-Webster High and a rival of ours. We weren’t even like close friends. When they moved into Hayesville, Ethan just fell right into what we were doing. I was surprised at how good he was actually,” Cottrell recalled.
Bryan College Head Basketball Coach Don Rekoske can relate.
“I did not find out about him until after the season. That’s when I first heard about him,” Rekoske said Monday after obtaining Hooper’s signature on a letter of intent to play basketball at Bryan in Dayton, Tenn. “We’re excited he’s coming. I think we stole one. No doubt about it. He’ll fit what we do and he’ll be great for our culture, so we’re glad he’s coming.”
Not as glad as Hooper is.
“It was a great connection off the bat. I liked him and he liked me and we just wanted to make it happen,” Hooper remarked Monday.
“It” is Hooper becoming an important part of Bryan’s future success on the hardwood.
Both of Hooper’s coaches, past and present, are confident that the kid who flew under the radar of every college coach in the country except Rekoske will make good.
“I think he’s going to be one of the best shooters in our program,” Rekoske stated. “Ethan’s a great shooter. He can really fill it up. That’s the kind of player that we play at that 2-3 spot.
So I think he’ll do really well.”
Cottrell concurs.
“We were really blessed to have him and I think he’s going to have a really solid career,” Cottrell said. “I would have loved to have him two more years. I think Coach Rekoske will get that out of him at the next level. I think he’ll really change his game a lot. I’m excited to watch his game develop.”
The development may be slow according to Rekoske, at least in the eyes of fans.
“It’s hard to come in as a freshman and play a lot. Very hard. This year, I only had one freshman play a lot of minutes,” Rekoske stated.
With two seniors graduating from a team that won 16 and lost 15 in 2022-’23, Hooper will do more sitting than playing next season. He knows he will have to pay his dues. He knows he needs to add muscle and speed. He’s also focused on improving his ball-handling.
Again, both coaches are certain Hooper will make the necessary adjustments. Cottrell has already witnessed Hooper’s ability to adapt.
“We saw different kind of defenses on him and we had to adjust, he had to adjust and I think his game got much better because he had to find different ways to score and do different things for us,” Cottrell said. “Yeah, he definitely kind of exploded this year. So I was really excited about his senior year.”
Rekoske believes Hooper has the character to handle college ball at the NAIA level.
“We have really good culture, great leadership. We don’t have one kid in our program that we don’t want to coach. So his character was critical and his academics were very key,” Rekoske remarked.